Will Android Be An Apple Killer?

When Apple’s iPhone was first introduced Apple’s iOS dominated the smartphone market but, by the fourth quarter of 2010, Google’s Android OS had 53% of the U.S. consumer smartphone market while Apple’s iOS fell to 19%. Now it looks as if the same fate may befall Apple’s iPad. The Motorola Xoom, the first tablet computer to use Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), was released recently and many reviews say it is superior to the iPad 2. The Xoom is just the first of a number of tablets that will use Android 3, a platform specifically designed for tablets. Android 3 may take the lion’s share of the tablet market as Android 2 has with smartphones.

Some experts are predicting that tablets will replace netbooks and laptops. I already replaced my laptop with a netbook and, although I’m tempted to purchase a Xoom or the soon to be released Toshiba tablet, I think I’ll stick with my Samsung netbook for a while longer.